This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.

Perhaps the strangest turn in 2015 has been the fight for standardized testing.That’s right. Organizations that you’d expect to see fighting against
racism have been clamoring for access to multiple choice bubble exams.

SOME Civil Rights groups have demanded more testing, and others have demanded LESS.

The Journey for Justice Alliance (JJA), a group made up of 38 organizations of Black and Brown parents and students in 23 states, wrote Congress an open letter
in July asking for an end to high stakes testing. And the JJA wasn’t
alone. The alliance was joined by 175 other national and local
grassroots community, youth and civil rights organizations who signed on
to the letter to “…call on the U.S. Congress to pass an ESEA
reauthorization without requiring the regime of oppressive, high stakes,
standardized testing and sanctions that have recently been promoted as
civil rights provisions within ESEA.”

However, the JJA’s call has been largely ignored by lawmakers and the
media. A much smaller coalition of Civil Rights organizations in favor
of testing, on the other hand, has been given so much press you’d be
excused if you thought they represented the entire activist community.

But then like magic when the political situation changed
and reauthorization seemed like it might actually happen, suddenly a
coalition of Civil Rights organizations found their love for
standardized testing.

However, even laudable groups like the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) owe Gates a debt.UNCF took more than $1.5 billion from Gates.
Ostensibly that money is supposed to go to scholarships. And there’s
nothing wrong with that. But how could the organization go against the
wishes of perhaps its biggest donor? The consequences could be
disastrous for UNCF’s entirely worthy mission.

One can imagine administrators stuck between a rock and a hard place
having to compromise their stance against testing in order to continue
helping people of color fulfill their dreams of going to college.